If there ’s one thing to learn from Scurry County Commissioner Chloanne Lindsey’s effort to build staff participation and enthusiasm for the county’s safety initiative, it’s this: Almost nothing beats free food. Lindsey, who recently received a prestigious Making a Difference Award from the Texas Association of Counties for her efforts in improving the county’s safety track record, coordinates Scurry County’s safety efforts with a budget of just $1,200 a year.

That money has gone a long way.

Each year, the Texas Association of Counties honors Pool-member counties that have taken the initiative to develop workplace safety programs and strategies that lower their workers’ compensation claims and reduce the number of on-the-job accidents that occur annually. TAC Safety Awards are given to counties based on the elements of their safety programs (such as regular education, training, safety inspections and meetings), the overall safety culture exhibited by employees, the success of their safety efforts during the previous year, elected official support of the safety programs, the total improvement in the county’s safety program from the previous year and its overall improvement of safety over the years. Scurry County earned such an award this year. Lindsey said the county’s success can be attributed to several factors, but most of which relate to one goal: making safety a common topic around county offices.

Scurry County holds monthly lunch-and-learn safety meetings for all its employees. More than 75 percent of the county’s workforce attended the last meeting.

“We invite everybody,” Lindsey said. “We call it a safety force. We usually have a light lunch and try to get topics that would interest everyone.”

Lindsey and several volunteers prepare lunch for each safety meeting.

“I cook stuff that stretches,” she said. That’s sandwiches, hamburgers, beans, chili, and a Thanksgiving potluck each November.

“It makes them feel like they’re part of something.”

Another way Lindsey saves money is by asking invited safety speakers to volunteer their time for the lunch and learns.

“We asked an ambulance service to teach a CPR class for free, and now we have 88 employees certified in CPR,” she said. “We get highway patrolmen to come tell us about the new laws each time the legislature meets.”

For counties thinking about starting a safety program, Lindsey suggests partnering with businesses in the community. “Use your places around that are willing to help: the hospital, physical therapist, fire department, police department … just start somewhere,” she said.

Being Proactive About Safety

In Bell County, Loss Control Coordinator Russell Williams — the county’s assistant auditor — starts with TAC. The Association has a number of safety-related resources available to Pool-member counties, and Williams has used them all.

“Their film library has everything from office safety to the more serious matters of how to safely operate road and bridge equipment, and how to train your employees on the uses of chemicals,” Williams said. “And it’s all free.”

That’s helpful, because Bell County doesn’t have a large safety budget dedicated to reducing workplace accidents. While the commissioners court approved funding for some initial equipment for safety training — such as for the TVs and VCRs that are necessary for showing training videos — Williams’ job is to make a safety culture cheap, but not shabby.

Williams credits TAC’s team of loss control specialists with providing free quality safety training to county employees. The specialists travel around the state and create safety-related workshops specially tailored for county employees. Several of the workshops focus on how to create and maintain safety programs.

“Anytime we want a training, we just call (TAC Loss Control Specialist Jack Coffey) and he comes,” Williams said. “Sometimes he comes by on his own to speak with me or the HR director, asking if he can give any classes.”

Since Bell County doesn’t have a lot of funds for safety initiatives, the money it chooses to use must be well-spent. The county pays for membership in the National Safety Council and invests in defensive driving classes for employees.

The National Safety Council offers its members numerous safety resources, including newsletters, magazines, posters, suggested safety- meeting topics and brochures, yearly compiled injury data, safety documents and listservs.

The commissioners court also requires any employee driving a county vehicle to take a defensive driving course every two years. The county pays for the courses.

“Since we started making that mandatory, we’ve had less accidents that were our fault and less accidents that were somebody else’s fault,” Williams said. “We also made defensive driving available to all employees, even if they don’t have a county vehicle.”

The courses have improved the county driving record and saved the county money on its insurance premiums. Bell County hasn’t had a fatality accident in 10 years. “Tax dollars are important, but not near as important as making sure everybody goes home from work safe every day,” Williams said.

Bell County’s efforts also earned them a prestigious 2009 Gold Star Safety Award from TAC, recognition that its initiatives are the “cream of the crop,” according to the loss control experts who are charged with evaluating each county’s safety program.

“This award reflects the highest levels of support from all levels in the county, from elected officials to front line workers,” said Mike Strawn, who heads TAC’s team of loss control specialists. “The true intrinsic reward of these safety efforts is the knowledge that each year more and more employees attend work without injury to themselves or others.”

Analyzing Local Safety Trends

Strawn and his staff work year-round to help counties analyze their safety efforts to reduce workplace injuries.

One way to measure whether safety programs are working is to look at county workers’ compensation claims over a period of time. A decrease in the number of claims shows that fewer employees were hurt on the job. A decrease in the dollar amount of claims can mean that accidents were less severe.

Having the proper focus will ensure that a county’s safety program is maximizing its impact, Strawn said. “Take a look at what’s causing your problem,” he said. “If you’re a big enough county to have the (workers’ compensation) data, look at the data. If not, talk to other counties. See what their main problems are.”

Of the 204 counties funding workers’ compensation through TAC’s Risk Management Pool, sheriffs’ departments filed $14.6 million in claims — about 32 percent of the Pool’s total claims from 2006-2008. After law enforcement, road and bridge constructionrelated injuries accounted for the next highest workers’ compensation claims costs, at $10.5 million.

“Most county officials probably already know that these operations involve the most risk,” Strawn said.

He advised counties to ask: Are the people who oversee these operations interested in employee safety?

“Most all the time the answer is a resounding ‘yes,’ but sometimes other priorities overshadow the commitment to keep employee safety a top priority,” he said.

Developing a Safety Culture

To keep safety from slipping down the list of employee priorities, county loss control experts recommended implementing initiatives that will integrate safety into the county’s workplace culture. “Employees have fewer on-the-job accidents when safety becomes part of their value system,” said Coffey, TAC’s loss control specialist who regularly provides training to Bell County. “It’s a win-win situation for both the employer and employee.”

Both Coffey and Strawn stressed that support for safety programs must be present at all employee levels, but especially from top management and elected officials.

“The first step is getting buy-in and commitment from all the elected officials, including department heads, managers and supervisors,” Coffey said, adding that some employees may need a manager’s encouragement before they take time to attend safety training sessions and meetings, and that department heads should be responsible for conducting regular safety inspections of their areas and staff. “No safety program can be effective without their strong support. … If the manager or supervisor doesn’t buy-in to the program, the program will just wither on the vine and die.”

In Bell and Scurry counties, Lindsey and Williams both said that all four commissioners and the county judge support the county’s safety programs.

“I have support from every elected official,” Commissioner Lindsey said. “I couldn’t do it without them being willing to come, and encouraging their people to come.”

Sometimes, that support doesn’t come so easily. Coffey said getting county officials to admit to having some unsafe practices is the biggest obstacle to improving safety.

“It’s very difficult for the county to start a program when they’re in denial,” he said. “So it’s important that we clearly explain the cost of workers’ compensation claims to the county. The safety efforts have a direct impact on the workers’ compensation losses.” Once counties do begin to understand the need for a safety program, Coffey encourages them to begin by developing an effective accident-prevention plan.

“Our focus is not on a paper plan that will sit on the shelf collecting dust,” he said. “We want to help counties develop a strong safety culture; a county with a strong safety culture has significantly lower on-the-job injuries and workers’ compensation costs.”

Williams described Bell’s safety culture as one cultivated psychologically amongst the staff, via constant communication regarding safety.

“Probably to some degree we’ve been lucky that we haven’t had a tractor roll over or somebody seriously injured one way or another,” Williams said. “But also the fact that our claims rate is so low is because we have a safety-conscious atmosphere. If you don’t have that, employees just forget.” To maintain that atmosphere of safety, the county determined which departments were experiencing the highest incidence of injury— road and bridge, buildings and grounds, and the sheriff’s office— and appointed safety officers to each of those areas. Within the departments, the safety officers hold their own training sessions. “When buildings and grounds hires a new employee, they go through a training session primarily dealing with chemicals, because that’s what they work with,” Williams said. “The sheriff’s office has a safety training program with CPR classes and other classes about handling inmates.”

The county also holds safety classes during times of inclement weather and on each payday.

“Because of those three departments keeping a constant safetyconscious atmosphere, we’ve done pretty well,” Williams said.

Ector County’s safety-program strategy also focuses on keeping safety on the minds of employees. The county uses an employee newsletter to cultivate a culture of safety. The newsletter details the county’s workers’ compensation claims and provides regular safety information to keep employees thinking about safety.

“It’s making a difference to have safety constantly in front of employees,” said Ector County Human Resources Director Patricia Patton. The newsletter was created by the county’s director of risk management, Ray North.

Before hiring North, the county had an insurance director who handled the county’s safety program. When the insurance director retired, the county shifted insurance responsibilities to Patton, which is when she requested a risk manager to help minimize workers’ compensation claims and increase safety efforts.

Investigating the Cause of Accidents Aside from creating tools to communicate with employees, North’s first job was to review the county’s past workers’ compensation claims, all the way back to 1975, and find a way to address the county’s specific safety problems.

“I spent a solid month going through that to find slips, trips and falls was our number one claim,” North said. “I’m happy to say that we have not had any slips, trips and falls to amount to anything in the last three years.”

Since then, he has also worked to implement an accident-review committee that meets monthly to review all county-related accidents, whether they involve an employee or resident.

The committee includes Patton, North, the project manager, and representatives from the county attorney’s office, sheriff’s office, building maintenance, highways and streets department, and the equipment services department.

“Representatives from those departments that utilize vehicles more heavily keep us informed about the cost of repairs or let us know if the equipment’s being abused,” Patton said.

The county adopted a point system, and if the committee determines that an accident was the result of negligence, or if it could’ve been prevented, the committee assigns points to the individual who was operating the equipment or engaging in an unsafe practice. If a county employee were to receive the maximum of 14 points over a three-year period, the committee would evaluate his or her position to determine whether the county should continue to retain the employee.

Employees who have incidents up for review are invited to speak to the committee before it assigns points. All employee accidents are evaluated, and public accidents are evaluated if they involve county property or if the county could be liable.

“We met a little resistance about the point system at first, until the officials saw that points were being applied fairly and employees had an opportunity to speak about the incident,” Patton said.

The committee also reviews accident reports and photographs before making a point determination.

“We’ve seen a reduction in accidents,” Patton said. “People are more aware of their environment, and many accidents can be prevented if they’re more cautious in how they go about their daily duties. We also have employees watching more carefully for unsafe working environments.”

When building the county’s accident-review structure, North said he incorporated safety practices that he learned from working in private industry, particularly regarding vehicle safety. “I came from private industry where accidents weren’t tolerated,” North said. “If you had a vehicle accident, you were fired. The county could not understand how anybody could have a zero incident rate for motor vehicles.” Part of the accident-review process includes committee members analyzing accident photographs. North began placing disposable cameras in each county vehicle and created a policy instructing employees to take photos of the accident scene whenever a county vehicle was involved. Employees create a “pictorial reconstruction” of the accident that includes photographs of all four sides of both vehicles and photos of the accident scene from a distance of 100 feet and 500 feet. “Of course, the first thing we’re concerned about is their health and well being,” North said, “but then if you’re capable and able, we want 15 pictures.” The committee is then able to take the accident scene and employee testimony into consideration when assigning points to the accident.

As a result, the county has seen a decrease in the number of county work-related vehicular accidents, and the accidents that are happening are less severe than previous accidents. During the current fiscal year, which began in October 2008, the county has had 8 accidents with damage totaling $30,000 — a trend that had continued from 2008.

“In 2005, we had as many as 40 accidents,” North said. “Employees have taken on a whole lot of responsibility and ownership of the program.”

Ector County HR Director Patricia Patton collects a Gold Star Safety Award for the county’s efforts. Scurry County Commissioner Chloanne Lindsey was honored with a Making a Difference Award. Hardin County HR Manager Rose Stewart accepts a Safety Award on behalf of her county.

McLennan County Personnel Director Butch Kelly accepts a Safety Award for his county. Washington County Treasurer Norman Draehn collects a Safety Award for the county’s efforts. Denton County Risk Manager Gustavo Hernandez accepts a Gold Star Safety Award. “We’ve seen a reduction in accidents. People are more aware of their environment, and many accidents can be prevented if they’re more cautious in how they go about their daily duties. We also have employees watching more carefully for unsafe working environments”

The safety strategy resulted earned the county a 2009 Gold Star Safety Award.

Finding Safety Advocates and Resources

In Scurry County, Commissioner Lindsay became an accidental safety advocate. The previous safety-program administrator retired and no one took up the county’s safety efforts, so Lindsay volunteered.

“I would encourage all counties to start a safety program,” Lindsay said. “Just jump in with both feet and start. Pick a subject and start with it.”

According to Strawn from TAC, counties themselves are a huge asset to each other. Counties that don’t have such comprehensive data can talk to other counties to find out what their major claims are.

“Counties help counties,” he said. “That’s what we do. Counties can talk to each other.” That’s exactly what North did when he was trying to create a policy on vehicle safety.

“I asked other counties for their vehicle policies and safety records,” North said. He also utilized TAC’s resources, including the lending library and driving simulator, and looked to the National Safety Council for advice before proposing a safety plan for Ector. “If you want to achieve results, you need to be patient,” TAC’s Coffey said. “All the workers’ compensation claims losses didn’t happen overnight, and they won’t be fixed overnight either. It will take time, patience and, most importantly, management commitment and employee involvement.”

Questions Counties Can Ask Themselves to Ensure a Focus on Safety

The risks involved in the operation of Texas county government are broad in scope and cost. But you can ask a few< questions to see if your safety program’s focus is where it needs to be and if you have support in the right places.

1. Do we have meetings or events for high-risk operations to emphasize employee safety, both on and off the job?
2. Do upper-level managers and/or elected officials take the time to participate in these events and communicate a message of safety?
3. Do department heads and supervisors recognize and reward safe behavior in high-risk operations, or are reckless behaviors permitted or encouraged to “get the job done”?
4. Do we have a safety or loss-control committee?
5. Do the departments with the most losses actively participate in the committee?